As is traditional, I will post a 25-part serial story, with a daily episode posted at 5pm GMT, in the run-up to Christmas. The episodes will be limited to 123 characters each, as they will be numbered and tagged with #AdvenTale (that’s the tradition, so I’ll stick with it despite having more characters on Twitter now). I hope you’ll enjoy it.

There’s a prompt that’s been going around a while, about the first astronauts on Mars finding a dead human body, or a skeleton, and some words written. It came to mind the other day, but I couldn’t decide what words I’d put in. If only I knew, I thought, which my readers would like the most.

So I got the idea of making a poll, and then the choose-your-own-adventure followed from there. Below, I’ve collected the whole story, as it was told over three days, with the popular vote-winning option always at the top of the list, and the others struck through. It was hard to write, and it reads a bit disjointed, but it’s not bad for a first effort, I think. I had as much fun as I had stress over it (since I had no plan, and only wrote a new part in response to the concluded vote until the tenth or so episode).

Many thanks to the thousands of readers who voted and kept reading.

The first astronauts on Mars found a dead body in a cave, and four words written in blood:

The alien sat alone in a bar, like it had seen humans do in films. It looked the part, and tried to feel it, too. It inhaled alcoholic fumes and stared at the counter.
A person sat down next to it and ordered a drink.
It did not acknowledge the other person, but thought about the companionship of strangers, the quiet agreement to coexist without interaction it had observed among humans.
“Hey,” the other person said. “You know they say everyone is wearing masks?”
It glanced to the side. “Yes?”
“You ever take yours off?”
“Uh.” It hesitated, uncertain of the correct response. “Sure.”
“How many?”
“It varies,” it said in full and complete honesty, “but never all.”
“Yeah,” the stranger said and emptied their drink, “me too. Don’t know if I think that’s sad or comforting.”
They stood up, brushed against the alien, and left.
Much later, when the alien left the bar, it found a note in its pocket, with a phone number, and the galacticommon glyph for respectful curiosity.

This is the first short story (not counting serial tweetstories) I have written entirely on my mobile phone.

Now that the preliminary programme for WorldCon 75 has been released, I can tell you that I will be in two panel discussions. If you want to hear what I and the other panelists have to say about these subjects (and see what I look like when I’m not an eggship), please join us.

“What now?” said the dead mouse.
“You’re dead,” said Death. “Do what you like.”
“I’ll be a dragon!”
“Nice,” said the cat. “I am the knight.”

The mouse swelled up to a huge dragon. “You are dead!”
“I’ve died a few times,” the cat knight said. “Doesn’t mean I’m dead.”
She charged.

The cat stormed through the house, turned, batted something only she could see, dodged invisible blows, jumped up on the chair, and struck.

“Aw, she’s playing,” her humans said. “Look at her go.”
Shortly, the dragon was defeated, and the cat knight went to reassure her humans.

“You are safe now,” she purred.
Then she went to have a nap, to be rested in case more ghost monsters attacked.

Initially just meant to be a single-tweet story, but I was asked if the cat was dead too, so apparently what was obvious to me needed to be spelled out. If a cat has died once, it can see the dead. Which explains what cats are doing when they are fighting something invisible.